ALKIBIADES AND THE ATHENIANS. 215 for it, whatever may be the guilt of those who proposed and pre- pared it by perfidious means. 1 1 The proceedings in England in 1678 and 1679, in consequence of the pretended Popish Plot, have been alluded to by various authors, and recently by Dr. Thirlwall, as affording an analogy to that which occurred at Athens after the mutilation of the Herrase. But there are many material differ- ences, and all, so far as I can perceive, to the advantage of Athens. 1. The <: hellish and damnable plot of the Popish Recusants," (to adopt the words of the Houses of Lords and Commons, see Dr. Lingard's His- tory of England, vol. xiii, ch. v, p. 88, words, the like of which were doubt less employed at Athens in reference to the Hermokopids,) was baseless, mendacious, and incredible, from the beginning. It started from no real fact : the whole of it was a tissue of falsehoods and fabrications proceeding from Gates, Bedloe, and a few other informers of the worst character. At Athens, there was unquestionably a plot ; the Hermokopids were rei.l conspirators, not few in number. No one could doubt that they conspired for other objects besides the mutilation of the Hermse. At the same time, no one knew what these objects were, nor who the conspirators themselves were. If before the mutilation of the Hermae, a man like Gates had pretended to reveal to the Athenian people a fabricated plot implicating Alkibiades and others, he would have found no credence. It was not until after and by reason of that terror-striking incident, that the Athenians began to give credence to informers. And we arc to recollect that they did not put anj one to death on the evidence of these informers. They contented them- selves with imprisoning on suspicion, until they got the confession and depo- sition of Andokides. Those implicated in that deposition were condemned to death. Now Andokides, as a witness, deserves but very qualified confi- dence ; yet it is impossible to degrade him to the same level even as Teukrus or Diokleides, much less to that of Gates and Bedloe. We cannot wonder that the people trusted him, and, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, it was the least evil that they should trust him. The witnesses upon whose testimony the prisoners under the Popish Plot were condemned, were even inferior to Teukrns and Diokleides in presumptive credibility. The Athenian people have been censured for their folly in believing the ucmocratical constitution in danger, because the Hermae had been mu- tilated. I have endeavored to show, that, looking to their religious ideas, the thread of connection between these two ideas is perfectly explicable. And why are we to quarrel with the Athenians because they took arms, and put themselves on their guard, when a Lacedaemonian or a Boeotian armed force was actually on their frontier ? As for the condemnation of Alkibiades and others for profaning and cli viilging the Elcusinian mysteries, these arc not for a mo'nent to be put upoi
a level with the condemnations in the Popish Plot These were tnu
